I was watching the Big Bang Theory and the way they talk about sex is not using any old word but a new one "coitus" which means the same thing, everyone knows what it means and it doesn't stop them from talking about anything.
This is the lovely thing about censorship. The more walls you put up against different words, the more ways people will find to get around it. Every time a governmental agency has tried to censor people from talking about something people have always found a way around it, it may be harder, but it can always be done.
So, although Eric Idle might say Fuck the FCC, I might say something even more offensive which is ha ha sucker, you tried to clean our mouths and you gave us even more swear words to censor!
Because that is just the truth of censorship. Whether you are the Kremlin, Fuehrer, Dear Leader, or FCC, censorship of speech just doesn't work in the long run.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
A mistake Washington voters made last November
Congratulations Washington voters... you have decided to lower our credit rating in the easiest possible way by lowering the limit the State can borrow. Higher interest rates, here we come!
For your sanity, you might want to review this:
http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/Amounts-Owed.aspx
By lowering our credit limit we have made it so we will have a higher percentage of our State's available credit. This means that we will have a lower credit rating and probably higher interest rates in the near future.
Public announcement:
On a personal finance level, make sure that you have the highest credit score you can be approved for for your existing credit card. This will make you cover a lower percentage of your available credit which will mean your credit score will be higher.
Hopefully we can reverse this legislation ASAP.
For your sanity, you might want to review this:
http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/Amounts-Owed.aspx
By lowering our credit limit we have made it so we will have a higher percentage of our State's available credit. This means that we will have a lower credit rating and probably higher interest rates in the near future.
Public announcement:
On a personal finance level, make sure that you have the highest credit score you can be approved for for your existing credit card. This will make you cover a lower percentage of your available credit which will mean your credit score will be higher.
Hopefully we can reverse this legislation ASAP.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
State Legislatures
First, a summary of how state legislatures do elections because it is detailed. 49 out of 50 states in the United States have a bicameral legislature currently (all but Nebraska). The way that these chambers are run differs state to state, but there are big similarities across state lines. There are three systems currently in use in state legislatures. 39 states (except Arizona, Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia) have a simple yet ineffective system of having one representative per district, and two sets of districts, one for their upper house and one for the lower house. Every state has one representative per district in their upper (smaller) house. However, 11 states break this trend. I haven't done the analysis yet on the efficacy of each election and how many are accurate to the statewide voter choice, but hopefully I will someday. 5 states (Arizona, Idaho, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Washington) have one representative per district for their upper house (as normal) but two representatives per district for their lower house. How they vote for them varies, some are block voting (where people vote for as many candidates as there are seats and the two candidates with the most votes win) and some have separate elections for the two seats.
Before I describe the other districts, both methods present a problem. If you have the same population voting for these candidates and they can't rank their choices, you run into the spoiler effect and wasted votes. What ends up happening is you don't have a representation proportional to the choices of the district and you have usually one party win all the seats in a single district. Except for an example (Vermont) most states have only Democrats and Republicans in their state legislatures. The districts are regularly redrawn and you run into the problem of Gerrymandering.
South Dakota and Vermont residents could have either one or two representatives in their district. This doesn't solve the spoiler effect. They are all proportional in population per representative, but has all the problems of first past the post.
The remaining three states (Maryland, New Hampshire, Virginia, and West Virginia) have block voting, which is when you have a list of your candidates and you vote for as many candidates as there are seats, but what makes them different is that there is a large range between how many representatives you might vote on. You could represented by as few as one, or for some people in New Hampshire could have as many as 11 representatives. The population per representative(s) is all proportional, but since it is block voting, it doesn't increase the chance of third parties being represented and doesn't solve the spoiler effect, which means votes are wasted. They are on the right track, but block voting is not good enough to have a truly fair election system.
One question I have struggled with is why we have two state houses in all but one state. The disadvantages I can see is it takes legislation longer to get through government, and the upper house always has the spoiler effect because it is a one representative per district. This is a historical leftover. In New York, the two houses were similar to Parliament and (at the time) our Congress in that the Senate was elected by owners of land, and the House of Representatives represented everybody. In Washington State the House was elected every two years and the Senate every four. So, depending on when the different states entered the Union changes the reason why all but one has two houses.
I see no particular advantage today in maintaining having two houses, and see a few disadvantages It takes legislation longer to get through (which takes money, because they get paid to be there, and many states have time limits as to how many days they may be in session) and this can put good legislation on the back burner in order to pass a budget or some other duty that is routine and forgettable. If the representatives really represented the opinions of their constituents than there is no reason why it should take longer than reasonable to pass legislation that the people want to be passed.
The history of bicameralism goes back to the history of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. England's Parliament was established on 15 June 1215, and consisted of lords only as described by the Magna Carta which seriously limited the King's power. They evolved out of the Feudal system as members of the higher levels yet below nobility desired to have more power, and councils were formed which gave them more power. Parliament's main power was to levy taxes, among other powers. King Edward I was trying to unite the British Isles and parliament's power grew considerably. The House of Commons became an independent house from the House of Lords in 1341 under King Edward III. As the United Kingdom took over the British Isles over the next hundred years Parliament grew as an institution and bicameralism took shape. I will do another post on this someday... it's complicated.
Then when we get to the United States founding we have the famous Grand Compromise which created our form of bicameralism, with a Senate which was originally voted on by State Legislatures, and the House of Representatives was voted into power by whoever the State Legislature deems fit to vote (and still is). The New York example demonstrates how the two houses were set up similar to Congress and Parliament. Each state has a different story, so to generalize would be inaccurate. But what is important is that all but one state today has a state legislature.
Should we move to unicameral legislatures? From the point of view of making sure that all views are represented it would make sense to have only one chamber and have the members be elected using the Single Transferable Vote method which is the most accurate way to set up a legislature. Having only one representative per district for the upper house has no advantage in terms of the majority criterion of elections and hurts the possibility that a third party could be represented. This would be easily remedied by having both houses be elected using Single Transferable Vote, but then what would the point of having two houses be? Arizona, Washington and other states that have two representatives per district in one house and one in the other house don't see an increase in representation of minorities and see the same two parties again and again. With only two seats it is difficult to get more than two parties represented, and having one seat makes it practically impossible in most cases. It would make sense to have multiple representatives for each district and have them be elected by Single Transferable Vote which is the best way to guarantee that they will represent the people.
Kindle Fire HD 7" Tablet, 16GB B0085P4OWM (Google Affiliate Ad)
Before I describe the other districts, both methods present a problem. If you have the same population voting for these candidates and they can't rank their choices, you run into the spoiler effect and wasted votes. What ends up happening is you don't have a representation proportional to the choices of the district and you have usually one party win all the seats in a single district. Except for an example (Vermont) most states have only Democrats and Republicans in their state legislatures. The districts are regularly redrawn and you run into the problem of Gerrymandering.
South Dakota and Vermont residents could have either one or two representatives in their district. This doesn't solve the spoiler effect. They are all proportional in population per representative, but has all the problems of first past the post.
The remaining three states (Maryland, New Hampshire, Virginia, and West Virginia) have block voting, which is when you have a list of your candidates and you vote for as many candidates as there are seats, but what makes them different is that there is a large range between how many representatives you might vote on. You could represented by as few as one, or for some people in New Hampshire could have as many as 11 representatives. The population per representative(s) is all proportional, but since it is block voting, it doesn't increase the chance of third parties being represented and doesn't solve the spoiler effect, which means votes are wasted. They are on the right track, but block voting is not good enough to have a truly fair election system.
One question I have struggled with is why we have two state houses in all but one state. The disadvantages I can see is it takes legislation longer to get through government, and the upper house always has the spoiler effect because it is a one representative per district. This is a historical leftover. In New York, the two houses were similar to Parliament and (at the time) our Congress in that the Senate was elected by owners of land, and the House of Representatives represented everybody. In Washington State the House was elected every two years and the Senate every four. So, depending on when the different states entered the Union changes the reason why all but one has two houses.
I see no particular advantage today in maintaining having two houses, and see a few disadvantages It takes legislation longer to get through (which takes money, because they get paid to be there, and many states have time limits as to how many days they may be in session) and this can put good legislation on the back burner in order to pass a budget or some other duty that is routine and forgettable. If the representatives really represented the opinions of their constituents than there is no reason why it should take longer than reasonable to pass legislation that the people want to be passed.
The history of bicameralism goes back to the history of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. England's Parliament was established on 15 June 1215, and consisted of lords only as described by the Magna Carta which seriously limited the King's power. They evolved out of the Feudal system as members of the higher levels yet below nobility desired to have more power, and councils were formed which gave them more power. Parliament's main power was to levy taxes, among other powers. King Edward I was trying to unite the British Isles and parliament's power grew considerably. The House of Commons became an independent house from the House of Lords in 1341 under King Edward III. As the United Kingdom took over the British Isles over the next hundred years Parliament grew as an institution and bicameralism took shape. I will do another post on this someday... it's complicated.
Then when we get to the United States founding we have the famous Grand Compromise which created our form of bicameralism, with a Senate which was originally voted on by State Legislatures, and the House of Representatives was voted into power by whoever the State Legislature deems fit to vote (and still is). The New York example demonstrates how the two houses were set up similar to Congress and Parliament. Each state has a different story, so to generalize would be inaccurate. But what is important is that all but one state today has a state legislature.
Should we move to unicameral legislatures? From the point of view of making sure that all views are represented it would make sense to have only one chamber and have the members be elected using the Single Transferable Vote method which is the most accurate way to set up a legislature. Having only one representative per district for the upper house has no advantage in terms of the majority criterion of elections and hurts the possibility that a third party could be represented. This would be easily remedied by having both houses be elected using Single Transferable Vote, but then what would the point of having two houses be? Arizona, Washington and other states that have two representatives per district in one house and one in the other house don't see an increase in representation of minorities and see the same two parties again and again. With only two seats it is difficult to get more than two parties represented, and having one seat makes it practically impossible in most cases. It would make sense to have multiple representatives for each district and have them be elected by Single Transferable Vote which is the best way to guarantee that they will represent the people.
Kindle Fire HD 7" Tablet, 16GB B0085P4OWM (Google Affiliate Ad)
Friday, April 26, 2013
The real cost of the Cold War's nuclear weapons
The United States currently has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. It has been estimated that if we used them all we could destroy the world multiple times over. Annually we spend $35 billion maintaining our nuclear weapons supply. We currently maintain 5113 nuclear warheads, enough for 26 nukes per country (imagine 26 nukes descending on Monaco, 26 nukes descending on Canada, etc.) or one per 1.4 million people. If we (hypothetically) descended one nuke on the world's cities over 2,000,000 people we would have over 4800 nukes left. That would decrease the world's population by roughly 20%, and would kill roughly 1,400,000,000 people. Since there are 234 cities larger than 2 million people, this is a kill rate of about 6,000,000 people per nuke. (Based off of Wikipedia's list of urban areas by population) To kill everyone in the world, each American nuke would have to kill 1,400,000 people. I would say this is doable.
How is it worth spending $35 billion on an arsenal that is large enough to kill over 20% of the global population? I always compare government spending by how many people could be sent through college for one year with the same amount of money, and assuming $20,000 per person, we could send 1,750,000 students to college tuition and fees free. If we only paid tuition (assume $6000 per person, a state school) that would pay for tuition for about 5,833,333 students, or 2% of the population of the United States. For comparison, there were 4,136,000 births in 2009.
The message of this post is, next time you hear the Republicans speak about how much we spend on education and health care and how wasteful it is, ask how it is so wasteful to teach people how to be doctors, programmers, businessmen, teachers, any profession you an think of, yet it is a good use of funds to spend $30 billion on nuclear weapons, more than is required to kill every person on earth.
How is it worth spending $35 billion on an arsenal that is large enough to kill over 20% of the global population? I always compare government spending by how many people could be sent through college for one year with the same amount of money, and assuming $20,000 per person, we could send 1,750,000 students to college tuition and fees free. If we only paid tuition (assume $6000 per person, a state school) that would pay for tuition for about 5,833,333 students, or 2% of the population of the United States. For comparison, there were 4,136,000 births in 2009.
The message of this post is, next time you hear the Republicans speak about how much we spend on education and health care and how wasteful it is, ask how it is so wasteful to teach people how to be doctors, programmers, businessmen, teachers, any profession you an think of, yet it is a good use of funds to spend $30 billion on nuclear weapons, more than is required to kill every person on earth.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Changing to a Parliamentary System won't change enough.
One Law Professor made an interesting paper that claims that in order to solve our political disfunction we should move to a Parliamentary System. You can read a summary here. His three major points are that 1) our government is currently disfunctional, 2) our system could be fixed by moving to a parliamentary system aka a system where the executive is selected by the legislature, and 3) no other proposed change will fix the disfunction of not having a parliamentary system.
There are a few major problems with this paper however.
If we take the United Kingdom as our archetypal Parliamentary system wee need to analyze how well it works. the UK's House of Commons right now is 303 Conservatives, 57 Liberal Democrats, and 255 Labour, among other smaller parties. There are 650 members of the House of Commons total, which leaves 35 members of smaller parties. If the last election was proportional you would expect that the Conservatives had won 47% of the vote, the Liberal Democrats 9% of the vote and Labour 39% of the vote.
This is just plain not the case. In the last election the Conservatives won 36% of the vote (overrepresented by 11%), Liberal Democrats won 23% of the vote (underrepresented by 14%), and Labour won 29% of the vote (underrepresented by 10%). The largest problem of the current American House of Representatives, a ruling minority, is also present under the British system. Last year we saw the results of gerrymandering where the Republicans lost the vote but won the seats, and looking at the key swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and especially Florida, we see that there was clear gerrymandering going on that gave the Republicans a large advantage. Looking at the riding by riding results in the last UK election you find that Labour and the Liberal Democrats stole votes from each other which gave the Conservatives a majority (despite winning 52% of the votes nationwide together). This problem is very clear when one looks at the results.
Rick Hasen doesn't solve this major problem.
His third proposal is also wildly off base. By allowing people to use ranked voting and vote for third parties without wasting votes it will fix the disfunction of having a government with only two parties and no opposition on the left to the Democrats consistent pandering to Republican demands to move further and further right. a Parliamentary system alone won't fix this problem, ranked voting will. Just turning our President into a Prime Minister won't fix disfunction if the House can still be gerrymandered and the Senate still exists. No problem is really fixed with this solution.
Parliamentary or Presidential systems are both good, I see no major advantage that they have for each other, but ranked voting systems have a very clear advantage over First Past the Post, and when you compare the results of Australia's elections (where they use IRV) with Britain's elections (where they use First Past the Post) you find an enormous difference in how accurately the makeup of Parliament represents the national vote, and comparing Britain's elections with America's elections shows only a difference in how the head of government is selected, but no real difference in how the government represents the people. Also, I must say that comparing party list methods (like Germany) resemble the inaccuracies of Britain and America more than the more proportional representation of Australia.
There are a few major problems with this paper however.
If we take the United Kingdom as our archetypal Parliamentary system wee need to analyze how well it works. the UK's House of Commons right now is 303 Conservatives, 57 Liberal Democrats, and 255 Labour, among other smaller parties. There are 650 members of the House of Commons total, which leaves 35 members of smaller parties. If the last election was proportional you would expect that the Conservatives had won 47% of the vote, the Liberal Democrats 9% of the vote and Labour 39% of the vote.
This is just plain not the case. In the last election the Conservatives won 36% of the vote (overrepresented by 11%), Liberal Democrats won 23% of the vote (underrepresented by 14%), and Labour won 29% of the vote (underrepresented by 10%). The largest problem of the current American House of Representatives, a ruling minority, is also present under the British system. Last year we saw the results of gerrymandering where the Republicans lost the vote but won the seats, and looking at the key swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and especially Florida, we see that there was clear gerrymandering going on that gave the Republicans a large advantage. Looking at the riding by riding results in the last UK election you find that Labour and the Liberal Democrats stole votes from each other which gave the Conservatives a majority (despite winning 52% of the votes nationwide together). This problem is very clear when one looks at the results.
Rick Hasen doesn't solve this major problem.
His third proposal is also wildly off base. By allowing people to use ranked voting and vote for third parties without wasting votes it will fix the disfunction of having a government with only two parties and no opposition on the left to the Democrats consistent pandering to Republican demands to move further and further right. a Parliamentary system alone won't fix this problem, ranked voting will. Just turning our President into a Prime Minister won't fix disfunction if the House can still be gerrymandered and the Senate still exists. No problem is really fixed with this solution.
Parliamentary or Presidential systems are both good, I see no major advantage that they have for each other, but ranked voting systems have a very clear advantage over First Past the Post, and when you compare the results of Australia's elections (where they use IRV) with Britain's elections (where they use First Past the Post) you find an enormous difference in how accurately the makeup of Parliament represents the national vote, and comparing Britain's elections with America's elections shows only a difference in how the head of government is selected, but no real difference in how the government represents the people. Also, I must say that comparing party list methods (like Germany) resemble the inaccuracies of Britain and America more than the more proportional representation of Australia.
Changing our election system won't be as difficult as many believe
One argument I have heard from people about how moving to a ranked voting system won't work is because they think it will take a constitutional amendment. They are right that the Presidential elections will take a constitutional amendment, but the House and Senate won't.
All the Constitution says about the election of Representatives is that the electors must have the same qualifications as for the most numerous branch of the State Legislature. That's it, nothing more.
For the Senate, it gives the same requirements to vote, and says that they must be elected so that roughly 1/3 of the Senate is elected every two years and each State elects its senators in different years.
All other laws governing elections of the House and Senate are mostly in the United State Code. These only take a passage of a normal bill to change. The rules for the House of Representatives is codified in United States Code Title 2 Chapter 1 Section 2c.
In each State entitled in the Ninety-first Congress or in any subsequent Congress thereafter to more than one Representative under an apportionment made pursuant to the provisions of section 2a (a) of this title, there shall be established by law a number of districts equal to the number of Representatives to which such State is so entitled, and Representatives shall be elected only from districts so established, no district to elect more than one Representative (except that a State which is entitled to more than one Representative and which has in all previous elections elected its Representatives at Large may elect its Representatives at Large to the Ninety-first Congress).
The rules determining the law for the Senate is codified in United States Code Title 2 Chapter 1 Section 1 and it makes absolutely no mention as to how Senators are to be elected, or what system must be used beyond what is specified in the Constitution.
So, in order to change the laws regarding the election of Representatives in the United States all we have to do is change the law to something like this:
In each State no less than 5 and more than 7 Representatives will be elected from each district. The Representatives will be voted on in a ranked voting manner so that every Elector can rank all candidates in order. The candidates with the fewest votes will have their ballots be redistributed to their Electors next choice until the number of candidates standing is equal to the number of seats available. States with less than 5 representatives must form an interstate compact with neighboring states so that each Elector will have between 5 and 7 seats to vote on.
If we replaced Section 2c with that we will make all the changes necessary to insure a more accurate election system and give third parties a chance to get elected. It doesn't violate the 10th amendment any more than Obamacare, laws against child labor, or laws against segregated schools. In fact, according to Article 1 Section 4 of the Constitution the House and Senate have every right to change the laws for electing people to their chambers. This is 100% constitutional and only requires a regular bill.
Washington State used to have at large members of the House from 1889 to 1909, so having an at large district has been done before. If Congress receives enough pressure from their constituents, this can change. In terms of the Senate, all we have to do is pass a law requiring Senators to be elected using Instant Runoff Voting, which will be as easy as the last bill to pass.
All the Constitution says about the election of Representatives is that the electors must have the same qualifications as for the most numerous branch of the State Legislature. That's it, nothing more.
For the Senate, it gives the same requirements to vote, and says that they must be elected so that roughly 1/3 of the Senate is elected every two years and each State elects its senators in different years.
All other laws governing elections of the House and Senate are mostly in the United State Code. These only take a passage of a normal bill to change. The rules for the House of Representatives is codified in United States Code Title 2 Chapter 1 Section 2c.
In each State entitled in the Ninety-first Congress or in any subsequent Congress thereafter to more than one Representative under an apportionment made pursuant to the provisions of section 2a (a) of this title, there shall be established by law a number of districts equal to the number of Representatives to which such State is so entitled, and Representatives shall be elected only from districts so established, no district to elect more than one Representative (except that a State which is entitled to more than one Representative and which has in all previous elections elected its Representatives at Large may elect its Representatives at Large to the Ninety-first Congress).
The rules determining the law for the Senate is codified in United States Code Title 2 Chapter 1 Section 1 and it makes absolutely no mention as to how Senators are to be elected, or what system must be used beyond what is specified in the Constitution.
So, in order to change the laws regarding the election of Representatives in the United States all we have to do is change the law to something like this:
In each State no less than 5 and more than 7 Representatives will be elected from each district. The Representatives will be voted on in a ranked voting manner so that every Elector can rank all candidates in order. The candidates with the fewest votes will have their ballots be redistributed to their Electors next choice until the number of candidates standing is equal to the number of seats available. States with less than 5 representatives must form an interstate compact with neighboring states so that each Elector will have between 5 and 7 seats to vote on.
If we replaced Section 2c with that we will make all the changes necessary to insure a more accurate election system and give third parties a chance to get elected. It doesn't violate the 10th amendment any more than Obamacare, laws against child labor, or laws against segregated schools. In fact, according to Article 1 Section 4 of the Constitution the House and Senate have every right to change the laws for electing people to their chambers. This is 100% constitutional and only requires a regular bill.
Washington State used to have at large members of the House from 1889 to 1909, so having an at large district has been done before. If Congress receives enough pressure from their constituents, this can change. In terms of the Senate, all we have to do is pass a law requiring Senators to be elected using Instant Runoff Voting, which will be as easy as the last bill to pass.
How to solve income inequality
A very fascinating video about monkeys and income inequality: http://www.upworthy.com/2-monkeys-were-paid-unequally-see-what-happens-next
When he says it is the wall street protest he is absolutely right. When people are taken advantage of, they are going to revolt. This type of attitude was exactly what made our country independent in the first place. The 13 colonies were being treated unfairly by King George III before we became independent and we knew it. We then revolted, just as this monkey does throwing back the cucumber, because he wants a grape.
When you look at Occupy Wall Street you see people who have been working just as hard getting paid less and less and don't have the resources available to start their own businesses because they have to support themselves. This is why we called for ending the corruption in our government by overturning FEC vs. Citizens United.
When you look at the Arab Spring we see how they were being treated horribly by their governments and looked across the Mediterranean and saw how Europeans live. There is no reason they can't live like that, so they are in a revolution and I know that in the end the progressives will win, even though there are times when it doesn't seem like it.
No rational person would be content with being mistreated when the person right next to them is getting paid far more for the same work. This is a real source of income inequality in the world, compare state worker salaries and private worker salaries who work for corporations of a similar size and the comparison holds to my last two.
How do we solve it? First of all, we need to form cross-corporation unions. We need to say that we are going to set our prices at a point where we can make enough to live. This is one step towards making our economy more sustainable, but it isn't enough.
We then need to look at how much money we spend on gasoline, communications, and electricity and recognize that we can pay less if we set up corporations which won't be so greedy and treat their customers with respect. When it comes to gasoline we can move towards more competitive alternatives, like fuel cells, which will be a very important change in how our economy works. This will create competition as long as we allow competition to exist and don't allow monopolies to form on such a critical part of our economic infrastructure. When it comes to communications we need to have reasonable regulations to prevent corporations like Comcast and AT&T from forming cartels and keeping prices high. With no one else to turn to once these companies control the economy we need to make certain that there are regulations preventing price gauging which hurts economic growth.
Another important aspect to the economy is the stock market. When you look at the stock market you will find how banks and investment institutions own large shares in many different corporations. I have found Yahoo to be the most intuitive for finding which companies own large shares in other corporations. This presents the largest hurdle, because when a collection of banks own large shares of all publicly traded companies in a sector, they really do control the whole market. The easiest way to fight this is refuse to deal with companies that own these other corporations and end your bank accounts with them. Concentrated power is never a good thing, and that is why keeping your bank accounts with small locally owned credit unions helps prevent monopolies and limit the resources that big banks can get. With the major players in a market not competing to keep prices low, and paying people as little as they can, there is very little that local businesses can do to reverse the trend of how the purchasing power of the middle class has shrunk.
This is main reason that the major corporate media outlets don't push certain issues, they are all owned by the same people who have no incentive in talking about ranked voting, income inequality, or other major issues, but instead fill the time with cute 10 year old baseball teams, pundits who don't know the facts, and Justin Bieber (currently). It keeps them from talking about major issues and most international catastrophes (namely human rights abuses in North Korea, Darfur, and the Congo Wars among others). This is a serious threat to the political health of our country and other countries seeing similar concentrations of poew.The next step is for many different people to own stocks in their own name, and if enough progressive decide that instead of boycotting WalMart, Exxon, etc. they will buy the stock and vote in better people, followed by taking their earnings and investing in local companies, it will help limit the concentration of power that is so dangerous for both our economic and political cultures. It is a large shift but I think this is the way.
There will be anarchists and communists who say their way is better. The problem with the anarchists is removing the government from influencing the economy won't solve any problems in the long run. It is dangerously close to the hands off approach in the Guilded Age which saw massive monopolies, impoverished people, and if it weren't for the unions and the anti-trust legislation the Guilded Age would still be here. The communists who say that the government needs to control the economy leave the government with complete control of the economy which leads to the inefficiencies of planning boards which plagued every communist country. It also leads to a new ruling class similar to the old based on who is the leader of the party which means nothing has really changed for most people.
I favor a center approach. When it comes to competitive goods I see no reason for price controls, or anything more than a minimum wage and the right to organize to insure people will be able to be paid enough to live. When it comes to monopolistic or oligopolistic goods, I see the government needs a role in insuring that the monopoly or oligopoly that forms will not raise their prices to the point where they control everything and individuals have no power, or just control the monopolistic good (mainly oil, electricity, telecommunications) which is successfully done in many highly developed countries. This is a way to help the economy grow by circumventing the choking power that these companies have when they have no competition and no one can enter the market to create new competition. This helps people get better products for a lower price and gives people different places to work so that if unemployment gets low it will be the corporation that is competing for the most skilled workers, not the workers competing for the best jobs. This will make prices rise which will cause the aggregate demand to increase, which will reduce prices and increase GDP. Aggregate Demand on Khan Academy
When he says it is the wall street protest he is absolutely right. When people are taken advantage of, they are going to revolt. This type of attitude was exactly what made our country independent in the first place. The 13 colonies were being treated unfairly by King George III before we became independent and we knew it. We then revolted, just as this monkey does throwing back the cucumber, because he wants a grape.
When you look at Occupy Wall Street you see people who have been working just as hard getting paid less and less and don't have the resources available to start their own businesses because they have to support themselves. This is why we called for ending the corruption in our government by overturning FEC vs. Citizens United.
When you look at the Arab Spring we see how they were being treated horribly by their governments and looked across the Mediterranean and saw how Europeans live. There is no reason they can't live like that, so they are in a revolution and I know that in the end the progressives will win, even though there are times when it doesn't seem like it.
No rational person would be content with being mistreated when the person right next to them is getting paid far more for the same work. This is a real source of income inequality in the world, compare state worker salaries and private worker salaries who work for corporations of a similar size and the comparison holds to my last two.
How do we solve it? First of all, we need to form cross-corporation unions. We need to say that we are going to set our prices at a point where we can make enough to live. This is one step towards making our economy more sustainable, but it isn't enough.
We then need to look at how much money we spend on gasoline, communications, and electricity and recognize that we can pay less if we set up corporations which won't be so greedy and treat their customers with respect. When it comes to gasoline we can move towards more competitive alternatives, like fuel cells, which will be a very important change in how our economy works. This will create competition as long as we allow competition to exist and don't allow monopolies to form on such a critical part of our economic infrastructure. When it comes to communications we need to have reasonable regulations to prevent corporations like Comcast and AT&T from forming cartels and keeping prices high. With no one else to turn to once these companies control the economy we need to make certain that there are regulations preventing price gauging which hurts economic growth.
Another important aspect to the economy is the stock market. When you look at the stock market you will find how banks and investment institutions own large shares in many different corporations. I have found Yahoo to be the most intuitive for finding which companies own large shares in other corporations. This presents the largest hurdle, because when a collection of banks own large shares of all publicly traded companies in a sector, they really do control the whole market. The easiest way to fight this is refuse to deal with companies that own these other corporations and end your bank accounts with them. Concentrated power is never a good thing, and that is why keeping your bank accounts with small locally owned credit unions helps prevent monopolies and limit the resources that big banks can get. With the major players in a market not competing to keep prices low, and paying people as little as they can, there is very little that local businesses can do to reverse the trend of how the purchasing power of the middle class has shrunk.
This is main reason that the major corporate media outlets don't push certain issues, they are all owned by the same people who have no incentive in talking about ranked voting, income inequality, or other major issues, but instead fill the time with cute 10 year old baseball teams, pundits who don't know the facts, and Justin Bieber (currently). It keeps them from talking about major issues and most international catastrophes (namely human rights abuses in North Korea, Darfur, and the Congo Wars among others). This is a serious threat to the political health of our country and other countries seeing similar concentrations of poew.The next step is for many different people to own stocks in their own name, and if enough progressive decide that instead of boycotting WalMart, Exxon, etc. they will buy the stock and vote in better people, followed by taking their earnings and investing in local companies, it will help limit the concentration of power that is so dangerous for both our economic and political cultures. It is a large shift but I think this is the way.
There will be anarchists and communists who say their way is better. The problem with the anarchists is removing the government from influencing the economy won't solve any problems in the long run. It is dangerously close to the hands off approach in the Guilded Age which saw massive monopolies, impoverished people, and if it weren't for the unions and the anti-trust legislation the Guilded Age would still be here. The communists who say that the government needs to control the economy leave the government with complete control of the economy which leads to the inefficiencies of planning boards which plagued every communist country. It also leads to a new ruling class similar to the old based on who is the leader of the party which means nothing has really changed for most people.
I favor a center approach. When it comes to competitive goods I see no reason for price controls, or anything more than a minimum wage and the right to organize to insure people will be able to be paid enough to live. When it comes to monopolistic or oligopolistic goods, I see the government needs a role in insuring that the monopoly or oligopoly that forms will not raise their prices to the point where they control everything and individuals have no power, or just control the monopolistic good (mainly oil, electricity, telecommunications) which is successfully done in many highly developed countries. This is a way to help the economy grow by circumventing the choking power that these companies have when they have no competition and no one can enter the market to create new competition. This helps people get better products for a lower price and gives people different places to work so that if unemployment gets low it will be the corporation that is competing for the most skilled workers, not the workers competing for the best jobs. This will make prices rise which will cause the aggregate demand to increase, which will reduce prices and increase GDP. Aggregate Demand on Khan Academy
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